Energy Corridor District and Enterprise expanding Carshare Program

One of the Energy Corridor District's carshare program vehicles. Submitted

One of the Energy Corridor District's carshare program vehicles. Submitted

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One of the Energy Corridor District's carshare program vehicles. Submitted

One of the Energy Corridor District's carshare program vehicles. Submitted

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Energy Corridor District and Enterprise expanding Carshare Program

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As more and more companies decide set up shop in far west Houston’s briskly expanding Energy Corridor, with them they bring thousands of their employees to the area each year - as well as a resultant boost in traffic congestion from their vehicles. In response, the Energy Corridor District and Enterprise CarShare have partnered to launch a new carshare service for Energy Corridor area workers, with the aim of incentivizing alternate modes of transportation such as carpooling, vanpooling, bicycle transit and park and ride to the point where they’re the rule rather than the exception.

While carsharing has been in some incarnation since the 1940s, its popularity in the U.S. didn’t begin to gain steam until relatively recently. Under the ECD/Enterprise carshare program, members have access to a vehicle on or near their company’s property that they reserve online for an hourly rate ($9 on weekdays, $8 during weekends). Once at the car, the program member unlocks the vehicle by waving their membership card over a scanner on the windshield, providing access to the keys in the glove box, along with a fuel card. Unlike traditional rental car services, cost of gas and insurance is included in the hourly rate.

If a member has an emergency and no carshare vehicle is available, with a call to Enterprise’s customer service line they can arrange for an Enterprise employee to drive a substitute vehicle to the member from the nearest Enterprise location, several of which are located nearby.

ECD Transportation Manager John Nunez ECD/Enterprise initiated the carshare program’s implementation by applying for a grant with the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement Program, a federal program that aims to improve air quality by reducing traffic congestion. Nunez said the idea for the ECD-area carshare was born out of an ECD meeting last year, while the heavy traffic caused Eldridge Parkway’s renovation was being discussed.

“Construction was creating a lot of traffic delays,” Nunez said. “We had a staff meeting, and we talked about what we can do. And I said, ‘if we’ve more people carpooling or van pooling or taking the bus or bike riding - if we’ve got more people doing that, the problem would disappear. What can [we] do to encourage people?’ So I thought that this carshare program is a possibility.”

In order to boost the fledgling program’s appeal, a number of incentives are provided for members who register as taking alternative commutes to work a minimum of 12 times a month, whether through mass transit, carpooling/vanpooling, bicycling or a combination thereof. In exchange, the $25 application fee is waived, a 50 percent reduction of the $50 annual membership dues, and $25 in hourly rental credits each quarter.

The current ECD/Enterprise carshare fleet consists of four Toyota Prius Hybrids, two at the Eldridge Place facility at Memorial and Eldridge - opened in April - and another two just added last week by the ECD’s offices, slightly southwest of the I-10/Dairy Ashford intersection. Nunez said he projects that the program will expand to two other locations before the end of the year, and that BP’s Westlake campus has expressed an interest in hosting a carshare site, among others.

Typically, carshare programs are specific to one company. What makes the ECD/Enterprise program stand out against others of its kind, Nunez said, is that membership is open any of the corridor’s 84,000-some-odd workforce.

“It is unique,” Nunez said. “Enterprise does it for a specific company, but nobody does it for an area like we do. Usually a carshare is found at college campuses, some central businesses, and sometimes downtown for residences. But we’re probably the first that’s doing it like this - as a congestion mitigation project for people who take an alternate transportation trip in, providing them with an option for transportation during the day so they don’t feel stranded.”

Now that carshare has been implemented, Nunez said the next big step will be for ECD to promote awareness of the program among area employees. According to surveys conducted by both the ECD and Enterprise, 25 percent of commuters are leery taking alternative transportation for fear of not having a readily available vehicle at work. But as more people sign on for the program, the hope is that others will have their interest peaked as they see the benefits afforded to their carshare-using peers, Nunez said.

“We’re finding that consistently for people there’s a real barrier,” Nunez said. “So this idea is to overcome that barrier. We’re not going to get that entire 25 percent to adapt, but if we can get enough of a percentage of them, we can make a difference. That it becomes part of the culture, that it’s not unusual anymore.”